Make Way Day (MWD) is coming to a street where you live today. Make Way Day is an annual campaign to make way on our streets for people with disabilities and to raise public awareness about the problems caused by obstacles blocking footpaths.
The backbone of this campaign are people with disabilities and they will be out and about tomorrow with disability groups and local organisations reminding the public to make way for people with disabilities.
Commenting on Make Way Day, Pierce Richardson, Coordinator of the campaign, said, “Disability groups and organisations will be using Make Way Day this year to once again highlight obstacles such as:
• Cars or vans parked on a footpath blocking the way
• Bicycles/motorbikes chained to lamp posts creating a trip hazard for a visually impaired person.
• Illegally placed sandwich boards, forgotten bins, barrels and other obstructions
“We believe that a genuine lack of awareness is behind most instances like these.”
Pierce continued, “The Disability Federation of Ireland have developed an online tool that campaigners can use to test and rate their local area along with using the MWD stickers to highlight the issues faces by people. It is easy to use and download to a phone and will be circulated widely on the campaign’s social media platforms.
“It offers an opportunity for people with disabilities to survey their area for obstacles and rate its accessibility and to share their frustrations by posting photos of obstacles to social media platforms using the hashtag #MakeWayDay22.”
Pierce concluded, “Over the past two years we’ve all become very familiar with our neighbourhoods. Now that the 5k restrictions have lifted we ask how much freer are people with disabilities to move about?”